Duo's Jewel of Peace
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: 1x2x1 L2 is in the midst of civil war and ethnic cleansing.. Duo and his orphans are trapped and running out of food
1. Default Chapter

The Ruins of War By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own GW. I don't make money from GW fics.. but I do have my own stories for that. Warnings: uh. none so far.. well, I've taken liberties with the culture and with the Catholic Church  
  
Notes: 1x2, after Endless Waltz  
  
  
  
Peace was a relative state. The Earth Sphere was at peace. L2 was officially at peace. Duo Maxwell lay on his belly, on a flat area of ruined building. It had been someone's apartment, once. Duo repositioned the riffle, through the infrared sight he surveyed the ruined area around the barely rebuilt Maxwell Church. Peace was all fine and lovely, but he had 103 children he was responsible for and he wasn't letting rioters take his food supplies.  
  
He wore concrete dust colored fatigues, his braid wrapped in the same cloth, a night sight monocle on one eye, the other up against the sight on his weapon. Laying there, it was just business, just mechanical. People were starving on L2. The government had declared martial law and cleaned out warehouses to feed people a month ago. Duo had asked Quatre for help before that, and Winner Enterprises had sent a shipment of grain and water, but government forces had held it in dock, sealed and secret. Duo feared for the crew of the ship. Then politics had moved in. Opposition claimed that the government was hording food, committing genocide, trying to clean the colony out of uneducated people, peasants, so that valuable real estate could be renewed and offered to more productive citizens. Duo didn't care if the government was being framed as they claimed or the opposition was right about the government. What he cared about was making sure that any rioters or looters who got within a mile of the Maxwell Church go home with stories of Maxwell's Demon. Shi no tenshi was not sharing the food he had, not even with himself. His children would not go hungry, and he did expect that Quatre would get support to them, passed the government some way.  
  
The motion sensor he wore in his ear beeped, three times, then read the sensor id. Duo rolled over onto his back, sat up and lay down in the other direction. The sensor was beeping a steady alarm now. Through his scope, he watched the riot, street fight really, two groups, of perhaps three dozen participants. As he watched, one man put a knife made of sharpened steel debris in to the belly of a woman he was fighting against. Duo held his tongue between his teeth gently, and released three precise shots. Pop. Pop. Pop. Three of the fighters when down, all hit in the legs, nothing fatal at least not initially. The fight slowed, as people searched around for the sniper. He got another man in his sights, powerful looking man in make shift armor of metal plates made of mobile suit debris. Pop. The man fell, cussing aggressively as he held his arm, confused as to how a bullet could have gotten between the tiny opening between his shoulder and breast plates. Duo snickered. The street fight was over though, both sides taking their wounded and disappearing back into the sewers where hungry rats ought to lurk.  
  
He wished Quatre's promised more covert help would arrive soon. Food. Like food on Earth, that would be lovely. Perhaps he could visit Earth again sometime in the next year, have a steak and some potatoes, some corn on the cob, and some red beans, some real cream in his coffee, and red velvet cake. Before he knew it his eyes were closed and he could almost taste pizza on his tongue, thick cheese and spicy tomato, thick and hot. It made his teeth ache though and he opened his eyes, relaxed his jaws. Maybe he'd see if they could spare one nutra-packet when he got back, half of one. Would not do for him to starve and some water. He wanted some clean water. The motion detector went off again, and he shifted in the direction of the named sensor. Scanning this area, he fingered his trigger.  
  
The culprit this time though was a child, perhaps twelve or a little younger. Hungry, lean, limping, Duo watched the girl, her hair ragged and tangled, and he chewed the nutra-packet that he probably wouldn't get. With his little finger, he pressed a button on his ear piece. "Mika. Incoming, section J5, female, solitary. Pick her up, carefully."  
  
"Acknowledged," said a crackly and highly encoded voice female voice. "We have a message from Quatre. He said he that he was sending supplies with One. Do you understand that?"  
  
"With One?" And then Duo understood. He closed his eyes and an image formed in his mind. Heero. Lanky, independent, chocolate hair and beautiful blue eyes, a kindness that under girded the strength of a man could save the world nearly on his own. "Understood. Estimated arrival time?"  
  
"Unknown."  
  
"I'm coming in."  
  
"Duo."  
  
"Mika?"  
  
"Eat, or I'll hold you down and put a tube down your throat," she said, calmly, firmly.  
  
"You can try, math-girl. Be careful. There's fighting going on out here."  
  
"Acknowledged. Oh, Amber found and dragged in a couple cases of stuffed animals. I told her to leave them in the isolation area, until you can scan them."  
  
"Good job," he said, regretting his own kids were looters, and feeling sheepish that he was proud of his looters, "Convo termed."  
  
He gave another look through his sight, saw the girl sit down and lean against a block of broken concrete. In ten minutes, or less, Mika would be to her, and he decided to just wait, to watch and cover them for a bit.  
  
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	2. two

Duo's Jewel of Peace By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own GW. I'm just enjoying writing about what might have been, cuz Duo's soo cute!  
  
Warnings: uh. none so far.. well, I've taken liberties with the culture and with the Catholic Church, a few swear words  
  
Notes: 1x2, after Endless Waltz  
  
Chapter Two  
  
Duo had changed into civ clothes when he got back to the church. The living quarters were under the surface, carved out of the guts of the station. It wasn't ideal, more like a large metal cavern with the wall's covered over with plasboard only in areas where the youngest children were. They had nearly sixty-five very young children, but only one infant.  
  
She was a little girl whose mother had taken refuge with them, only to bleed to death giving birth. Duo had used all the remaining blood plasma they'd had trying to save her. She'd refused to go to the med complex even after she knew she was dying. What she was hiding from, Duo didn't know, but he wasn't going to hand her over to her enemies. Her daughter was all of five days old and slept more than a baby ought to, but seemed healthy enough to Duo. She currently slept in a carrier strapped to his chest. Diluted nutrapacks weren't breast milk, but she was gaining weight and having what the book said was healthy bowel movements. Jewel was living hope for him and beyond beautiful. He leaned back in his chair, moving his tongue around in his mouth, trying to decide if he should eat a nutrapack for himself, or wait a while longer, in the hopes that help would get there. While he did that, he rubbed his baby's back, taking comfort in the rise and fall of her chest.  
  
He'd have Maxwell Church finished by the time she could walk and she'd grow up in a household filled with love and good food, with school books and clean safe toys. He'd register as citizen of the Earth Sphere as Jewel Peace Maxwell. His jewel of peace. Happy for the moment he let himself think about Heero for a while. Those thoughts took him to sleep, in day dreams he'd had since he was still a teenager, of how soft Heero's hair might be, and what a shared shower would be like, of what Heero's smile would feel like, and just his arms around him, holding him as he drifted off to sleep.  
  
Sleeping there, he almost looked like a priest, black pants and jacket, white shirt, braid trailing over the arm of his chair and down to the floor. He wasn't though, the Church had refused him admittance to seminary because he had been clear that he loved and was sexually attracted to a member of the same sex. He wasn't going to lie to them, even to get support for Maxwell Church. They'd promised though, to send a priest. He didn't care what kind of priest showed up, just so there was one, to call the mass, baptize the children, and be there if something happened to him.  
  
In L1 Sector, prime colony  
  
"Hello."  
  
Heero ignored the female voice. It wasn't Relena. It wasn't Sally and he was in a hurry. He'd never actually installed one of these stealth units, and not in a commercial shuttle which was now gutted and prepared to hold enough food to feed a thousand people for a month, as well as a small pack of things that Heero knew Duo liked and another pack of medical supplies. He had plenty to do with getting the stealth unit installed, so he didn't want to talk to someone he didn't know.  
  
"I say, hello!" If anything the voice was more cheerful now, "Are you Heero Yuy? I'm not a solicitor or so. Miss Relena sent me. I meet your partner in the market. She said that I should pack some supplies back for her."  
  
Heero lowed himself, hanging just slightly of the guts of the shuttle where he worked. A woman, dressed all in black, white collar, and a cross, very like the one Duo wore. "How may I be of service to you?"  
  
She bowed. "Sib. Tærsa, Order of Willful Peace."  
  
"You're a priest?" She didn't look like what he would have expected. Black skin, darker than any of Quatre's followers, tight curly hair, and serious dark eyes, she was tall, lean, exotic looking to him. The African continent had endured disastrous plagues and famine in the early to mid-twenty-first century.  
  
They'd stayed well out of Asia and Europe's Oz wars while quietly building cities that relied on a sustainable harmony with their part of the world. Now they were emerging again, powerful in technology and culture. Where one skin tones had homogenized, now it was high status to had a child with midnight skin. This girl was no poor church child. "What do you want with me?"  
  
"Well, you're going to L2, aren't you? Cardinal Chavez had given me a commission to serve in the Maxwell Church. I have vaccines and vitamins, enough for 100,000 people. I was to go with you."  
  
"L2 is not a pretty place, Sib. There is disease and fighting. I'm told there might be an attempt at genocide going on. Its ugly and dangerous now."  
  
"Sounds like Africa at one time. Only help will heal such a wound. Let me come. I was a doctor before I took the cross and I only did so in order to go to Maxwell."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Duo Maxwell saved lives. Now he's working to save more I want to help. And I disagreed with my uncle's decision not to allow Mr. Maxwell a special dispensation for gender preference. If Mr. Maxwell had said as they wished him to, he would have had much support. I would love to meet the man this saint loves."  
  
"Maxwell is not a saint." Heero said, disappearing back into the shuttle. He didn't say she couldn't come though. It would be 6.5 hours until he was ready to leave for L2. Another 36 hours until he could dock on the outside of the thing, clamping on, still in stealth mode, and then find a way into the colony. Thoughts of Maxwell lingered in his thoughts, as he connected system after system into the stealth component. Maxwell was no saint. Heero still knew the man's resting heart rate from counting it while he slept once, as he watched over Duo after a mission gone more difficult than they'd planned. He knew his blood type and the kind of shampoo he liked best and he too wanted to meet this man that Duo loved so much. Meeting this man was a mission with an unknown goal, very uncomfortable for Heero. All he knew for sure was the could not kill his rival, no matter how much his soldier's logic said that would be the most direct route to getting to the goal of his heart's mission, another goal that he refused to acknowledge to himself.  
  
Back on L2  
  
She woke him, crying softly, a 'I think I'm hungry, but not sure cry' and he patted her back, holding her against his chest as he sat up, comforting her before the cry tired into, 'I'm starving and everyone's going to know it'. The twins Sirun and Sorun were asleep by the side of his lounger chair, leaning against each other, a single stuffed bunny between them, each holding one ear. He smiled and stepped over, only to get light headed one foot on the floor, one still on his chair. Tongue pinning his lower lip, he took a deep breath and held there for a moment, hoping the twins would not wake and glomp onto his legs just then. The lightheadedness didn't really pass as he got both feet on the floor and he decided he would eat.  
  
Heero was on his way and Duo didn't want to faint in front of him, even if he was a bit thinner. Maybe he could raise money, get fat rich people to come up on an eco-tour for two weeks, shift some rubble, live on half a nutrapack aday, go home twenty pounds lighter and with a great sense of well being. And a few blisters, maybe a bullet hole, he added to himself, maybe he shouldn't invite the nice people from Earth up just yet. Smirking, enjoying the thought of wealthy and well fed eco-tourists running from a street fight, he keyed in the combination on the impact and fire proof lock box the nutrapacks were kept in. Mouth watering, he carefully pulled the door open, not wanting it to creak and tell everyone he was opening it. Almost without thinking about, he kept bouncing Jewel and she had quieted, sucking hungrily on the end of his braid. Not the most hygienic pacifier, but he'd never told anyone, not even himself that he was parent material.  
  
The food locker seemed barer than he'd have thought. A quick count brought the total up to 324 packs. That meant, if Jewel ate every two hours, half a pack a meal, and he limited each child to one pack a day, didn't eat himself, they had food, counting the new girl, for just a little under three days. Someone would go hungry on the third day. He blew air into his cheeks, and considered where Heero might be coming from, and how long it would take, what the odds were that Heero would make it through to them at all. He took out two packets, dropped his in his pants pocket, and set about making Jewel a bottle. There was a ship with food in it. Quatre said he sent it. Duo didn't know a damn how to cook grain, but he expected it could be done, or Quatre wouldn't have sent it. It was really simple, the answer. He had to find the ship, raid it, hell, split the defenses open and spill grain out into the artificial sunlight of L2. The government could suck his rocks, if they could catch him.  
  
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	3. three

Duo's Jewel of Peace 3/5 By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimers.. alas.. if I owned them, they'd be called Dano and Tokala.. er.. no, I do own Dano and Tokala *wicked grin*. Duo's Jewel was written just for fun.  
  
Warnings: kindness to Relena, unhappy Duo  
  
Notes: 1x2, after Endless Waltz, mentioned 3x4  
  
Mika found him sitting in his room, the baby strapped to his chest again, as he poured over maps and rotation data from the colony . The tip of his braid was again held in a tiny hand and Mika stood there watching him for a minute. They'd meet in class, when L2 still had a university, well over a Earth year ago. He was several years older than she was, though he'd never admitted to his age. She had been in university three years early and acing classes that were giving him the kind of headache that seemed to make his braid stand on end. And so she'd tutored him, taught him things that her little brother was learning in his seventh level math course, but Duo had learned fast, so fast that she'd started to wonder why he hadn't learned it the first time he went through his levels.  
  
That had lead her to a bit of research, a what she'd found out had surprised her. He was a guerilla fighter and she found news footage of him fighting on Earth in a mobile suit that wasn't like anything that she'd seen in her history books. She also found news footage of him standing with Prime Minister Darlian, her hand on his shoulder, smiling as if he were her dearest friend. She knew he had very close ties to Winner Enterprises, enough to get the owner and leader to send supplies to them, illegally. She even found a news story, about a press release from the Vatican, which stated that Mr. Maxwell's service to humanity had saved countless lives and that Cardinal Chavez welcomed him to join them in the Holy City at any time, but that it was regrettable that he would not renounce a sin of the flesh and without so renouncing, he could not enter into the priesthood.  
  
She wanted to know what this sin of the flesh was, to know what sin a man would cling to while nearly starving himself. She wanted to know what would bring a man that was welcome in the Holy City, who could go to the Prime Minister's lavish home and be welcomed unconditionally, she wanted to know what he was doing living in a ruined church, taking care of a hundred unwanted children. She wanted to know this in part because she and her little brother lived here now, taken in by this man after their family's home had been flattened by government reconstruction plans. Their parents were on earth, gone there for medical treatment and now unable to return because of the martial law on L2. "Duo?"  
  
"Mika," he replied, looking at numbers she didn't think he really had the skills to understand, but he looked like he was getting some kind of information from them. "I ate, so don't nag me."  
  
"Good. I fed the new girl. She's just separated from her mother, at least that's what she says. They were sheltering in the Wyne Plaza School, when it caught fire."  
  
Duo looked up and sighed. The world felt too heavy just then, too dark. Fire ate oxygen. Oxygen was very expensive and rather limited on a colony. Fire was fought with foam, which in good times was delivered by fighter controllers in mobile suits and in bad times was by environmental controls in a huge dump, indiscriminate of other uses for oxygen, such as breathing humans. For a just a moment, something that frightened Mika passed over Duo's face, those violet eyes darkening, his already sunken cheeks drawing in more and he looked just like what one news articles had called him, the ancient Japanese god of death, Shinigami. "Let her think what she needs to. We might even find her mother. I let the kids have the stuffed animals. I'm going out in a bit."  
  
"Really? I think there is more fighting. The air quality isn't good, Duo." She was only 16 now, but some days she felt like Wendy watching over Peter Pan. "How long do you think it will until One gets here? Who is One?"  
  
That lifted the weight and she saw him smile, a smile that slowly grew into a grin. "One," he said through that grin, rubbing Jewel's back, giving her his little finger to suckle for a moment. "I'm Two. One is," and he stopped, eyes going dreamy for a bit and Mika tilted her head, watching him, taking in all the information. "One is a solider, but he's," and Duo paused again, sighing and looking at the baby he cuddled against his chest. Mika had never seen anyone take to a baby like that, not even her mom when her little brother was born. "The Prime Minister is in love with One, and don't you ever say that again to no one. He lives on Earth, takes care of her security. They're gonna have great kids, if they don't already. Cuz you see, One is perfect."  
  
Mika blinked, trying to interpret all of that. One was a man. What difference did it make if Relena Darlian loved him? Why would that be the most relevant bit of information? Sin of the flesh. "Does he know you're in love with him?"  
  
"OH hell no!" Duo glared at her, eyebrows drawing down, but it wasn't a scary look he was giving her, not like that Shinigami look he had a few minutes gone. "I told you. He's perfect. He's my friend and I want it to stay that way. Now, pay attention, okay? When he comes, he'll know how to get here and I want you to know what he looks like," Duo said, one hand fishing under Jewel into his jacket and out came a thin folded lather packet, just big enough for a credit stick. From that, he pulled out an old photo, laminated very solidly. He pointed out a man, about the same height as Duo, but with dark chocolate hair and a lanky frame, wearing a uniform of the Preventers. "That's Heero. And don't you never tell anyone one what you thought about how I might feel about him, you understand? Heero's got a great future on Earth, all the things that a hero oughta have and Relena she loves him like she loves breathing. He had it hard, you know? The things they did to him to make him into a perfect solider and I want him to be happy. So," Duo took a deep breath and laid his cheek against Jewel's head. "Mika, sometimes the things we love are the things that dirty hands oughtn't touch. Here, now, I got work to do, take this baby, will you? What do I look like a baby crib?" Quickly he slipped the baby carrier of and gently shoved Jewel into Mika's hands. "She needs her diaper changed, I think."  
  
"Duo?" Mika took Jewel, bouncing her as she started to cry. "How soon will Heero be here? He's coming from Earth? That'll take days."  
  
"I know that. Now, go on," he said, turning his back on her. "This sector is due for dark soon and I have to go out."  
  
"Where are you going?" Jewel howled a bit louder and Mika shifted her around to lay the baby on her shoulder.  
  
"Shopping. Go feed her or something. I need to think a little." Duo shrugged out of his black jacket, letting it drop to his chair.  
  
Mika left him then, backed out, of his room. Duo was going to do something dangerous, she decided and she didn't know how to get him not to.  
  
As soon as she was gone, Duo shut his door and stripped off his white shirt. He was no priest. He shut out the ghostly voices of Father Maxwell and Sister Helen, voices that told him to wait and be patient. It was just like years ago, when fighters had taken over the church and he'd gone to get what he thought would help. He'd just been a small stupid child and the only reason he'd survived was that he hadn't been there. There were lives more valuable than his.  
  
Inside his closet, he moved all the clothes to the side and sought out a keypad build into the sheetrock. No ordinary keypad, it was etched into the fragile sheetrock as if it were not more than just some lines ticked off on the wall, four with a slash, four with a slash, then three. He found it and carefully counted out the right number of lines before running his finger nail down the lines, in the right order. The whole panel of sheetrock swung inward, revealing a backing of gundanium and another small storage area.  
  
Duo put on a fresh suit of concrete and ruins colored fatigues, then a pistol at his ankle, another at his waist, a knife at the small of his back, small med kit in one pocket. His photo of them all, all five pilots, Relena and Sally, this he left sitting in place of the automatic riffle he took down. Heero really was the most beautiful man, and he tried not to think about what it would be like if Heero were to wrap his arms around him, hold the space trash that was Duo against his chest and run his thumb over dry lips, to hear Heero whisper that he loved him. He wanted to explain to Heero that he hadn't meant to bring disaster to Maxwell Church twice, that he was sorry he couldn't have just lied and done the right thing, that he was sorry he was twisted like he was to be longing for the kisses of his best friend and the most powerful warrior.  
  
Quickly he covered up his braid with a gray camo sheath and locked the little chamber again. Whatever food Quatre had sent, it really did belong to Duo more than the government. Only fair to take it back.  
  
He sneaked out, not getting one more look at the baby who'd brought him so much happiness and hope in her five days of life. All the weakness left him once he was out of the church grounds as well, once he was firmly in his Shinigami self.  
  
He moved between the remains of buildings rapidly, staying in the shadows and never casting one. Darkness was ever an ally. The plan was simple, slip into the quarantine area and break the seals on Quatre's ship. On a wild streak he thought about seeing if he could get into the detention center first, look for the crew, but there likely wouldn't be time to get them out, unload the ship, and get them away from the space dock before the government moved against him. He still wasn't sure what grain was anyway, and how much of it he could carry, how much of it he'd need to feed 104 kids for a month.  
  
On Earth  
  
"I think you should listen to reason," Relena said her voice just a bit harsher than she'd meant it to. "L2 is under martial law. There are riots! People are starving and the amount of food you're carrying is hardly more than Duo's likely to need for his orphans."  
  
The small ship that Heero meant to take was ready now. He leaned in he entry way, brown hair laying across his forehead, just like in Duo's photo. He wore jeans, a blue oxford shirt, a small cross like Duo's laying on the shirt, his arms across his chest. "Relena, I am going. I have waited too long already. And you are not coming. You are not taking the Prime Minister's cruiser. If you go, I will be obligated to protect you and I am going because I have neglected Duo for too long."  
  
"Now you listen to me," Relena said, finger pointing at Heero's chest, her eyes narrowed, "Duo Maxwell is my friend as well. More than that, more than my love for you, L2 is part of my political domain and I have an obligation to go so that I can help them negotiate, to settle things peacefully."  
  
Jade, Heero's co-pilot and friend, stepped up behind him. Her jade green eyes summed up the prime minister with a once over, dismissed her. "I was on L2 six months ago," she said in Japanese accented English, "The vice minister of commerce plan to entice the Rexant corporation in setting up a plant fell through because Rexant claimed there were too many cyborgs and uneducated people."  
  
Relena held up a hand. "What has that got to do with ..."  
  
"Genocide," replied another voice, which turned out to belong to a red headed young man. "My mother was vice minister of technology. I helped her install the new air generators that make L2 prime real estate. I think what they're planning is to blow the old generator and put the fire out with an environmental foam storm."  
  
"That's preposterous! There are more than 3 million people on L2 and that could snuff out most of them!"  
  
"Yes," Heero agreed, "But then they would be able to ask for a great deal of help from Earth and Rexant would move in. L2 would become perfect redevelopment."  
  
"Does Duo know?"  
  
Heero shook his head. "My transmission was jammed. You cannot go, even if that would get us there 10 hours quicker. I am going to help Duo, and, Relena, I'm not coming back."  
  
"I don't think anyone has to die over this!" Which she realized sounded quite stupid, as rather a lot of people were likely to die.  
  
Heero didn't reply, only turned and went back into his small ship. Jade hit the code to close the door and the entrance ramp disengaged, pulling back, taking a nearly hysterical Relena with it. "I will go any way. I will get them to be peaceful!"  
  
Heero looked back over his shoulder at Relena and for the first time she really understood that he was not ever coming back, that he didn't really love her and he wasn't going to heal someday, and that then he would want to hold her, that then he would understand how desperately she loved him. "Duo is in love with you!" She screamed it out, spilling the secret like a dagger ripped from her heart at last. It was a dirty secret and part of her hoped that Heero would be repulsed and turn to her, but his mouth lifted in a tiny smile. That tiny smile set her free. She held to the railing, watching as the little ship was pulled towards its launch strip and the door closed.  
  
As the rockets ignited and Heero's ship left Earth, she thought that he was finally going home because home was where the man who made him smile was.  
  
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	4. four

Duo's Jewel of Peace 4/5. I think I'm gonna run out of room in only five. By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimers.. alas.. if I owned them, they'd be called Dano and Tokala.. er.. no, I do own Dano and Tokala *wicked grin*. Duo's Jewel was written just for fun.  
  
Warnings: very vicious bad guy. very descriptive first part  
  
Notes: 1x2, after Endless Waltz, mentioned 3x4  
  
Finding Quatre's ship hadn't been difficult. He couldn't explain why the history of the rotation algorithm told him that there would be a heavy ship docked on the alpha centaury-ward quad, but it did. He just looked at the numbers and they made patterns and info in his head. So he knew that the ship was likely there and he also knew that was a very unlikely place for a civilian ship to dock, as it was right in the middle of government security sector.  
  
L2, as it was reorganized after the end war, was a donut shaped colony. It rotated fast enough to give it gravity, and even some almost natural atmospheric movement within the donut. Having felt Earth grav for quite a while, Duo could feel L2's now, steady most of the time, but just the slightest hint of the rotations, like being on a ship on an Earth sea when it hit the crest of the wave, held for a moment, but then on L2, it would ebb away so slowly that one hardly knew it was here. He thought it happened when the colony became slightly unbalanced, and one could feel that little tug when the section one was in hit the apex of the rotation. Of course, he didn't really have the words to describe that in any kind of believable scientific terms, so he kept it to himself. He was just an uneducated scavenger rat, he snarled to himself as he jacked into the security system on the elevator that would take him inward, up from the gravity well and towards the inner circle of the donut, towards government security and management sections. His little computer had been a gift from Trowa and though he didn't have any formal programming training, he could make that thing rock. Binary and Hex hadn't changed much in a thousand years he guessed, those old folk with puffy white wigs who hung out with Mozart probably programmed just like he did, one object at a time. It didn't really matter though, he'd broken the security patterns on L2 long ago and their new set only took him about forty-five seconds to get the elevator door opened and the destination programmed.  
  
An elevator car would accommodate a squad of six security personnel. Basically it was just a cube with a door on each side, four handles to a wall, and low quality synthed music. The music always got on Duo's nerves. There was lots of great music in the Earth sphere, everything from Jimi Hendrix to Tai Qa and he didn't think they were paying anyway, might as well steal the good stuff.  
  
After the first few minutes of the elevator's rise, it stopped feeling like a rise and he had to hold onto one of the handles. Once the artificial grav wasn't there, it was more difficult to tell what direction a person was going because the elevator didn't move fast enough to create any kind of G forces, at least not unless one was going all the way around the interior of the hub. Duo was planning on cutting right across the hub, going over one of the four spokes in the center, to just inside hub, still on the spoke though, to where the heavy ship was docked.  
  
By the time he reached it and the elevator opened to let him out, he caressed his pistol with his thumb, pressing his knuckles to the small of his back, and looked before stepping out into the hall.. No one. Not a single person, which even if it would be late second shift for them, it was odd. Even the lights were dimmed.  
  
Which meant? Duo wasn't sure. There were too many strange things going on. Fires were rare. In the past two weeks there had been four and if he didn't just know better, he'd have thought someone was testing something. The lack of guards on a detained ship was also very odd. It was perhaps a quarter mile from the elevator to where the ship was docked, and he didn't see a single person.  
  
He jacked his computer in again to break the lock on the ship. This took a bit longer, but about the point he started to get frustrated, the information all scrolled onto his screen. The Beautiful Bloom, Duo had nearly laughed out loud, what a name for a ship. There were times when Duo was sure that Q had a heart-on over Trowa. The arrival date on the ship though was logged as another 34 hours in the future still. Which didn't make any sense at all.. Why would they hide the ship and delay it for a couple weeks, only to have it arrive at some point in the future.... To delay it?  
  
The oxygen content in the ship was at 0%. There was Quatre's crew. Force docked and suffocated. For the first time since he'd come home to rebuild Maxwell Church, he wanted to leave, to take his children and go to Earth where there were strawberry plants and real sunshine.  
  
On the very small hope that some of the crew might have been able to suit up, he shunted oxygen back into the living quarters. Winner Enterprises had the best technology, maybe some one was alive.  
  
In the Center of the Hub  
  
Papadopla smiled at the girl sitting across from him. She was sweet, innocent, and stubborn, just the way he liked them. Her father was the recently deceased Prime Minister of L2. Since he'd killed her parents her value to him was strictly entertainment and instruction to the still living members of the L2 parliament. It was such a shame that so many were going to die. "Do try the strawberries, Laura," he coaxed. "I told you I'm going to make you a vid star tonight, so I want you to be relaxed."  
  
The make-up she wore did nothing to hide the redness of her face or nose. "I only 13. I want my Daddy." She started again moving her foot, trying to find some miracle way to get her ankle free of the chain binding her to the chair.  
  
"I fear that wouldn't be possible, but you'll be joining him and your mother before morning. How's that?" He'd turn enough air on in her family's air tight mansion so that she could find her parents' parts, then shut it off again. Coupled with the first part of what he wanted to film with her, it would make a very instructive vid. Nothing like fear and greed. "Just try the strawberries."  
  
"I don't want any!" She said. "You're mean! Shinigami's gonna get you!"  
  
"A belief in a myth will help you less than eating those strawberries."  
  
"Shinigami is not a myth! He came to one of my daddy's dinner parties and if you hurt me he's gonna get you!"  
  
A knock at the door diverted his attention as a sharply dressed guard entered, saluted in Rexant elite security fashion and offered Papadopla a printed communiqué. Dark eyes read over it, twice. Pale face, Asian eyes, Greek accent , he ground the words out, "This does say that air has been re- shunted to the Winner ship? That there are three life signs left. Tell me why I shouldn't kill you for this?"  
  
"Because it was her father who over wrote Rexant security with the original L2. I had said we should shot him rather than let him suffocate."  
  
"This is true. So, shut off the oxygen again, blow the wretched thing."  
  
"You killed my Daddy?" Laura asked, her voice small. "Shinigami's going to kill you."  
  
Papadopla pursed his lips. "Who in Hell is the Shinigami?"  
  
"Japanese angel/god of death, it has been associated with a terrorist from the war, a Duo Maxwell."  
  
"You killed my Daddy!" her voice was louder now and her eyes on the steak knife by her plate.  
  
Papadopla got up from the table and moved out of her range. "I suppose there is some connection between Maxwell and Winner?"  
  
His aide nodded, "Both terrorists in the war. Also connections to Heero Yuy who is in charge of the prime minister 's personal security and to Trowa Barton, a programmer for the Winner Charitable Foundation, widely thought to be personal security for Quatre Winner."  
  
Furious, Papadopla grabbed the edge of the table and screamed, "Why didn't your father tell one of the gundam pilots lived on L2?"  
  
Her lips had gone white, her eyes slightly bulging, but she kept eye contact with him as she stood, not betraying her hand as her fingers closed around the handle of her steak knife. She yelled and stabbed at the same time, "Because he thought you were a bad man!" She twisted the knife in his hand, screwing it down to the table. He screamed. She dove under the table!  
  
He jerked the blade free and growled, "I am a bad man!"  
  
"Sir," the assistant interrupted. "Another large prototype Winner vessel just veered away from the colony, not more than two hours distant. I think it likely that they have deployed a smaller stealth covered ship."  
  
"Starving rats! I'll be back, Laura dear. Do try the strawberries."  
  
Elsewhere on L2..  
  
Realizing it would be hours until he could get into the ship, until there was enough oxygen and temp balance to let him open the door without frosting his fingers, unless he could find an envirosuit, he went off in search of other food and pilferables. The main government storage facility was, in fact, where he'd gotten the nutrapacks they were using now. That had been in better times and done on a bet, between himself and the Prime Minister, just to see if he could. If the Prime Minister of L2 had not been his friend, a friend he had campaigned to get elected, he would have done something about attacking the government before this. As he dropped himself to the ground from a power conduit that was designed to hold more cabling than it actually did, he admitted to himself.. he didn't want to fight this government. He just wanted to take care of his kids and keep his hands clean, pass his damn classes. He wished someone hadn't fire bombed the university. He had so much to learn.  
  
Stealing, however, was something he knew and he preflight deck hanger he'd found.. There were probably 150 enviro suits all laid out, all nice and ready to use, but too big to take back through the conduit to get into Quatre's ship, so he quickly went one to one, snitching the nutra pack from the front left leg pocket in each. He had no idea why anyone would leave 150 envirosuits out, just so ready to be slipped into. Disaster drills maybe? Well, they were suits for grown ups, so grown ups could go hungry like the nice responsible people they were. His kids needed these. Quickly he got the backpack he'd also acquired filled.. and then. he smelled it. steak.. that lovely sauce that was dark brown and thick and tasted just a little bit like oranges.. A1.. any sauce with a 1 in it had to be good! A shudder when through him. Steak!  
  
He grabbed a hold of his braid, right at the base of his head and told himself very firmly that he'd already gotten more than he'd come for and it was time to go home and have a nice vanilla gel pack. He promised himself two, all for himself with a tiny bit of the chocolate powder he'd been saving, but he was still walking towards the service elevator. It was damn unsafe to carry things around in zero grav elevators, so they had service elevators where one could chuck stuff to shift around, ship it to the right area, and unload it there. Kneeling in front of the roughly Duo shoulder width opening, he sniffed. Steak, asparagus, and red wine, yes, and fresh bread, underneath of those scents, he could hear a child crying, not a baby, just a kid, and that was all the justification he needed. Quickly, he jacked into the destination keypad and shut the service elevators down for service for a good half an hour, then grabbed a small o2 mask and canister, which he fastened to the side of his stolen backpack. Automatic riffle across his back, backpack on one shoulder, he slipped himself into the shaft.  
  
Moving on his belly, elbows pulling him along, he just knew it couldn't be far.  
  
Back on Earth.  
  
It had been twenty hours since Heero's departure and Relena wished she could declare that she was completely over the sadness, that she was delighted for her two friends to be moving towards each other. But the truth was she really hadn't had time to think about it. She'd spent most of the time reviewing extremely boring data about L2 and trying to contact the Prime Minister. The accountability act required all executive decrees be placed on file with the Parliament of the Earth Sphere, and therefore available for review by top level people. Relena had a handwriting expert comparing the signatures of the last twenty degrees to be filed by L2. The decree declaring martial law was in those twenty, and she didn't think that the president had signed it. Greed and opportunity were only abetted by poverty and greed. She would not allow the colonies to be taken over by corporate entities. She had two options. Sanctions or military intervention were really the only options, because waiting to see if it got better would do nothing. Sanctions would starve people, if they were imposed, but sometimes the threat was worth more than the action.  
  
Sanctions would prove very effective against a corporate enemy, however. If Rexant wishes to make profit from L2, Relena would see that they didn't. She stood and pushed back her chair, adjusted her collar just slightly, then turned to look out her office window into the garden. And she would send Preventers with food and medical supplies. And the ship would carry a letter, signed by every member of parliament, including L2's representative, if she could finesse it, declaring L2 isolated until the president accounted for his actions.  
  
Head high, shoulders back, not looking in the least as if she were a woman with a forever unrequited love, she moved into her world, the world of consensus and politics. They would see it her way.  
  
Back on L2.  
  
It was a very tiny anomaly and Ricther pointed it out to Papadopla cautiously. "It might not be a ship."  
  
"It is more logical for it to be a ship than for it to be Santa Clause running late," Papadopla said, hair standing up on his neck, eyes looking murderous. "Use the new net. Capture it just as we did the Winner ship, but don't drain the air. We have a nasty little rat in our house, and those are his friends. I think they'd make good bait."  
  
Elsewhere.  
  
Duo gave the panel another solid shove and this time it gave, opening with a groan of outraged hydraulic hinges. He shoved his back pack through, then went out head first, landing on his hands before tilting to the side and going down to his knees. There, right before his eyes was a table, with candle light and two plates, two glasses of red wine, a bowl of fruit, and he sighed. Heaven. There right on the edge of the table nearest him, was a crystal bowl full of some thick amber fluid, with dozens of strawberries floating in it. Mouth watering, stomach trying to turn into a black hole on him he moved forward, hands and knees, then up onto his feet.  
  
Someone had spilled wine, bright red, on the table cloth. He speared one cut up bit of the steak with a fork and brought it up to where he could sniff it, the tang of the sauce and even the very slightly copper scent of the rare meat, an herb, maybe cilantro was in the sauce as well and he swore to himself, he'd learn to cook. He'd get foods and baby them in the kitchen, cut up the little leaves and grind the seasonings until he could create the most succulent of food. He moaned softly and put the small bit of meat into his mouth, holding it there, feeling the texture of the mean, of the grill line, before swallowing it whole. His stomach did not wish to wait for him to chew.  
  
Next came a strawberry. He lifted it by one green leaf, holding it gently between thumb and pointer finger, watching the amber syrup drip, slowly, a drop going over the curve of the berry, across a seed, down, to hang at the bottom and then drop back into the swirling pool of strawberries. He licked his lips, cleaning away the bit of steak sauce and brought the berry closer. With just his lips, he held the very tip, gently, no teeth, as his tongue circled the end, sweeping away sticky sweet, almost chocolate flavor. He pushed it in, slowly, turning as he went, cleaning it with his tongue, before pulling it back out. Shivers rose up over his shoulders as he sank his teeth into the rarest of fruits. Juice ran to his lip, flowing into his mouth, and out over his lower lip as the berry divided, offering half of itself to his tongue.  
  
This he chewed, furiously, crushing the juice and swallowing nearly whole, before he went back to the remaining half. He circled his tongue all the way around the O of the berry, then right into the very center where there was the palest little pink part. As he chewed that berry, hands already shoving the steak into a nice damask napkin, a knife got stuck on the table cloth, nearly pulling the whole of it over the side and he jumped back, just as the steak knife stabbed forward again, breaking off just where his foot at been.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
The edge of the tablecloth lifted and a tear streaked face looked up at him. "Leave me alone! I'll stab you!"  
  
"Laura?" The prime minister's daughter? Chained to a chair? Duo gritted his teeth, blinking just a tiny bit as his vision went all lovely rainbow like for a moment. "Laura, it's me. Duo. You remember me? I want to help you."  
  
"Duo! I told him you get him! He killed my Daddy and my Mommy!"  
  
"I'll help! Hold on." He drew the pistol from the small of his back, and fired at the chain on the chair leg. The leg had been bolted down to the floor. Now it wasn't. He knelt down and held out his hand. The most unfamiliar sense of power and freedom, of invincibility was creeping up on him. He could do anything, anything at all!  
  
"You shouldn't eat the strawberries," she whispered, taking his hand and then wrapping her arms around him. "I think they're drugged."  
  
If you'd like to see my original novel, but you're not sure ebooks are safe or so.. email me at squallsknight at yahoo.com and I'll try to get you a version that you're comfortable with. 


	5. five

Duo's Jewel of Peace 5/?  
  
Author: Nix Winter  
  
Best laid plans of novelists and cute pink haired girls.. oh well. I meant it to be five.. I'm gonna try to finish it today thought  
  
Warnings.. Upset Relena  
  
Notes: 1x2, after Endless Waltz, and I had Heero and Relena on L1 and on Earth. mistake on my part. They are on L1.  
  
"You shouldn't eat the strawberries," she whispered, taking his hand and then wrapping her arms around him. "I think they're drugged."  
  
The taste of the strawberry lingered tartly on his tongue, to the inside of his lip, and he knew he shouldn't lick at it, to gather up the last of the juice, but he couldn't help himself, really. "Too late," he said and he couldn't keep the smile out of his voice. Already, the drug had him. "Quatre gave me strawberries once. They're my favorite. And you need to get off L2. Yeah."  
  
"Duo," she said, still stunned, numb and frightened because her hero had already eaten the poison and part of her said that was it, everything was over, and part of her just didn't want to listen. "I don't want to die. I'm scared, but I don't wanna die."  
  
He took a step back and reached to wipe his thumb over her cheek, wiping away a tear. Death. The great cleanser, the great hunger. "I don't want you to die, Laura. You're a good person and I'm going to help you get out of here. I need you to be brave and hopeful for me, okay?"  
  
She nodded, her lips a thin line. "I don't want you to die, Duo."  
  
He caught himself in the process of thinking.. too late to that as well. He knew the happiness he felt just then was because of the drug. He didn't feel hungry. The bullet that had broken his leg in the war and left him with a near constant low grade ache, that didn't hurt either. He smiled. Dead or not, he felt pretty damn good. He closed his eyes and considered. His little Jewel, her small fingers wrapped around one of his, the way she held his braid with such innocence. He wasn't dead, he decided, because he still wanted to see her crawl and hear her say his name. And he felt strong enough, not to give a damn if he hadn't done enough penance to have clean hands. He wasn't really ever gonna be good for Heero, but he had time to get good enough for Jewel. If Heero hadn't had Relena, if he'd just had a bit more time to get good enough for Heero, well.. Sneaking a bit of steak from the napkin in his pocket, he smiled. "I got a plan."  
  
Darlian Mansion, L1 .  
  
Relena leaned back in her chair, a chair that had been in the Peacecraft family for a long time. She, herself, was a Darlian, but what had been Peacecraft was hers now as well, including the lovely chair from Louis the fourteen's palace. In her hand, she held a crystal goblet she'd bought two months before, large and thin, with a stem that seemed to be rose stems, perfectly imperfect, just like real rose stems, that rose up to the goblet, with lovely green glass leaves laying to the side and two roses, one white and one silver laser etched into the thin crystal. On one side, between the roses, also laser etched was an elegant R and an ornate elegant H. She'd bought a pair, for a wedding she'd spend a lot of time dreaming about. The mate to the one in her hand lay about three stories down, in a thousand bits of crystal.  
  
She was Relena Dorlian, Prime Minister of the Earth Sphere and no vile little political disagreement on a rather minor colony, however it got blown up into something it wasn't, was going to warrant .. what she didn't know, as she took another sip of very expensive, very sweet wine. Wearing gray pants and just her frilly white shirt, which was open five buttons down, the lacy collar laying to the side. Heero Yuy really was in love with that slut Maxwell. She closed her eyes, rubbed her eyebrows. Anger wasn't the answer. She knew that. What the answer was for making her stop hurting so that even her body felt it, so that she half wondered if she were having a heart attack, she didn't know. So she took another sip of wine.  
  
Distantly, she heard the musical tone of her vid-phone and considered if she wanted to answer it while she was drunk or not. It kept ringing and she had the odd sense that someone was cussing her out somewhere. It was just her imagination, already overused today, as she thought about Heero taking a dashingly handsome Duo into his arms. Of course, Duo was in a tux with black pearls woven into his braid and Heero would hold him tight, hand at the small of his back, dip him back, kiss him better than any romance novel she'd ever read, then confess his love for him. Yeah and there'd be a wedding and in some hideous over use of her imagination, she saw Duo walking towards Heero wearing *HER* wedding dress. As she walked towards the vid-phone, she made a promise to herself that she would burn that damn dress before anyone ever saw it, let alone asked to borrow it. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to focus, then hit the receive button.  
  
And there he was! The groom stealing braided idiot! Her eyes narrowed and she very nearly splashed the vid screen with expensive wine. "What do you want? You can not borrow my wedding dress!"  
  
"Uh," Duo said, not all prepared for a Relena with her shirt half undone, hair looking like a blond afro of disarray, wine glass in her hand. "'Lena? You know, you did say I could call you here, if I ever really needed something, and Uh, I don't need a wedding dress."  
  
She leaned closer, studying his face. He looked thinner, a lot thinner, dark circles under his eyes, hair dull, cheeks sunk in. "You look like death."  
  
He closed his eyes for a moment, ran his hand through his bangs, and she noticed that hair came out, just a bit, clinging to fingers that were god awful thin. It had been a year or so since she'd seen him and the contrast made her sober. She meant to set her goblet down on the table, but only got it half way on and it shattered over the floor. One hand over her mouth for a moment, she felt suddenly like a completely spoiled brat.  
  
"Yeah, well, it's been a little tight here, but I wanna ask you a favor, 'Lena, uh? I'll owe you big time, but I really need this."  
  
Then behind him, she saw a girl. The child stood only as tall as Duo's shoulder and looked completely terrified. They were in some kind of communications center which was not at all a place she would have expected a child. "How can I help, Duo?"  
  
"My friend, Laura," he started and the head slipped behind him again. "There's a cruiser, luxury class, leaving L2 in about two hours. I need her to have a berth on it, room of her own, and she's gonna need a fake id and a visa. I ain't got the money for the ticket, so I need to buy that, in her name, supply the visa. It's got to have the stamp of the Prime Minister and be all hell of official. I don't want her stopped, and if they do stop her, they'll be afraid of you enough to let her go. Once she gets there, you gotta promise you'll take good care of her."  
  
Relena had heard that Duo was taking care of a child or two, that he was rebuilding Maxwell Church. The girl didn't look as underfed as Duo did though, from the glimpse that Relena had caught. "I can make that happen, Duo. Why don't you come as well?"  
  
"Nope, can't do. I got a Jewel here."  
  
She didn't understand that at all, but she felt, and she laid a hand on the vid-screen, as if she could touch his face as she thought about it. Duo had not stolen Heero. "If Heero weren't in love with you, I might have been. He's coming there, you know?"  
  
"I had heard. Relena, are you drunk?" Duo asked, as he turned to towards the door for a moment, predatory caution showing in the line of his body, in the way he reached for the pistol now holstered at the small of his back. "I thought you didn't drink."  
  
"Yes, well, I thought I was going to get married. Duo, be careful. And don't you eat anymore? Seriously, I think anorexia is worse that getting drunk once."  
  
He pulled the pistol then, face tight and drawn. "Fuck, 'Lena, I eat when I can. Just send me up a picnic, will you? Gotta run. Have that ticket and visa waiting, 'kay?"  
  
"I will, Duo," she said to a black screen. Whatever was happening on L2, it made her feel a bit like Marie Antoinette.. 'let them eat cake'. He wanted a picnic. She would send him a picnic. And a ticket and a visa. She redid her collar, signaled her personal assistant and got to work.  
  
Between L1 and L2.  
  
Sib. Tærsa of the Order of Willful Peace screamed quite like someone not quite ready to meet her higher power. Heero tuned it out and wished with all his warrior's soul that he had a small craft that was armed. The six mobile suits taking pot shots at his little craft wouldn't have stood a chance if he'd had Wing. Or even Deathscythe. Even a good taurus or space going leo. "They fired on us! Tell them we're a diplomatic mission!"  
  
Jade unfastened her safety harness and let herself float up out of the co- pilot's seat. "Sib," she started, politely enough, as she drew herself hand over hand across the roof side of the large cockpit/living quarters of the craft. "Sit down, be quiet, or even if I get the steal modulator to another frequency, they'll hear your wailing and know where we are anyway!"  
  
The red headed man snickered. He had one foot hooked under a hand hold, a tiny electric spanner in one hand, as he worked on some bit of wiring that had blow all the way into the cockpit. "Heero, I got it rewired." He gritted his teeth, used the other end of the spanner as a micro soldering iron, "And sealed. We shouldn't lose stabilizers when we hype the stealth jammers again, but I suggest we all strap in good."  
  
"Speak for yourself, Strawberry," Jade teased good-naturedly. She'd spent most of her life in small craft like this one, not in big environments like Earth or L1 or L2. She clipped her belt to a hook and opened the panel that covered the stealth wiring. "Now, Heero?"  
  
They were only a couple hours out from L2. There would be no failure on these missions. He'd programmed the evasive pattern already. The ship would drop off the level with the mobile suits, veer to the starboard, then roll over and dart around towards L2 on the opposite side from where they'd planned to dock. According to the plans, they could dock, clamp to the inside of the hub, then suit up and walk over to a service hatch. It wasn't a neat way to get in and dangerous as hell because the people who lived on L2 were highly unlikely to be documenting all the re-engineering they did. It was amazing that the thing still had enough balance to go around in a decent cycle. L2 was a wreck of a colony, and Heero had been turning over ideas for how to get Duo and his kids off ever since he decided to go to him. "Now."  
  
Jade amped one frequency of the stealth modulator, which reset the seed variable and completely reconfigured the frequency that was shielding them. Sib. Tærsa held on tightly to her safety harness and Heero dropped them enough degrees, veered, and an energy field hit them. Power sputtered. Heero snarled.  
  
"What's happening?" Tærsa squeaked.  
  
"We're being boarded," Jade said, dropping to the floorward side of the cockpit as the gravity increased. "We're being boarded by something fucking big."  
  
www.onepinkrose.com 


	6. six

Duo's Jewel 6/? By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimer. I don't own Gundam Wing, nor any of the characters thereof.  
  
Warnings. I took liberties with the Catholic  
  
Notes. It needs an epilogue.. some happy times  
  
"What a sorry lot you are," Papadopula sneered at his new captives. A priest, a gypsy, the escaped son of his late head of technology, and he would give a lot to know where that red headed bitch got to. She was pregnant; how far could she have gotten anyway? And then there was the head of the prime minister's personal security. How they all got to be headed towards his L2 in a smuggler's ship filled with food, he wasn't sure, but some of the cargo left tantalizing hints. He was currently going through the priest's papers, and those were more than hints. She was assigned to Maxwell Church, with a sizable credit chip, which he was more than happy to acquire for his personal account, through appropriate laundering services, of course. The young man with the red hair was obviously coming back to help his mother, or protect his position in the L2 technocracy. The gypsy, well, it was likely her ship, even if Heero Yuy had been piloting. At least she knew her limitations. Yuy, however, was a real prize.  
  
Papadopula had not gotten where he was by being slow. Since he'd realized who it was running like a rat in his castle, he'd done some research. Maxwell was an interesting lunatic and Papadopula would lay odds that, especially as Yuy was the one to come to the rescue, that Yuy was Maxwell's great sin, great secret. He knew already as well that Maxwell had breached his private quarters and gotten his toy out, that by the time his cruiser docked with L2 again the little girl would be beyond his reach, safely on a luxury liner headed for Earth. Score one for L2's resident rat.  
  
"So, Mr. Yuy, have you ever considered yourself to be rat poison?"  
  
Inside L2, in a maintenance closet.  
  
Far behind some racks of cleaning solution, Duo Maxwell huddled ignobly under a tarp with a bucket. Some minutes after he'd killed a guard, neatly enough to collect his uniform, trying not to think about how badly he was traumatizing Laura, he'd gotten her into a taxi headed towards the space docks. He'd had to hide his riffle to be in uniform, and that had brought him to his closet, where his stomach had decided to spontaneously pump itself into a bucket. It had been a long time since he'd killed anyone, no matter that he thought he was an angel of death. It hadn't been quite so long since he'd had food that wasn't a nutra-pack and needed to be digested, but his body seemed to have forgotten how to digest steak anyway. So that brought the strawberry up as well, with at least part of the drug, or maybe got the drug into him more, as it came back up. He didn't know, didn't care and he couldn't seem to think clearly at all, even in the euphoria that cradled him.  
  
Huddled hidden in the closet, he was quite sure that Heero was madly in love with him, and Wufei too for that matter! That Relena respected him completely and that somehow he'd managed to be Jewel's biological father, even though he'd never actually slept with a woman before. Some small sane part of his mind told him that was all utter nonsense, that he was drugged and if he just sat there long enough, he'd start thinking clearly again, and until he did, he ought to just sit there.  
  
Outside the closet, he heard the sound of the internal call system, "Vid call for a Mr. Duo Maxwell. Please pick up at any terminal. Mr. Duo Maxwell to the nearest vid terminal."  
  
He closed one eye, wrinkled his nose, fingered his favorite pistol, the one he'd had holstered at the small of his back. It could just be an hallucination of the drug. He didn't think anyone other than maybe Une would just page him as he was raiding a base. He was older and wiser and had more of a reputation now though, his drug inflated ego told him.  
  
"Oh Mr. Maxwell," the call system said again, but this time it was a male voice. "You were expecting guests? I understand that my guest is now safely nibbling chips on a very expensive cruiser due to your meddling. I'll need a new companion for the evening. I have a Mr. Yuy here in my company. Quite unconscious. Aren't you pleased I didn't suffocate him on that little smuggler ship he was in? What do you think? You think he'd like to keep me company tonight? Do come to a vid terminal, Mr. Maxwell. I'll let you see that he's breathing."  
  
Adrenaline and drug combined to make Duo's heart beat so quickly that he wasn't sure he could breath at all. He couldn't go to a vid terminal. They'd know exactly where he was. Oh Heero. Under the glorious sweet of the drug that told him he could save Heero, he'd just waltz right in and shoot his second person for the day, yeah. He was Shinigami, no angel even, he was Death itself. Heero was in trouble now because he'd liked Duo and that was proof. Duo was the plague, but the drug took that deep seated self hate and made it like swirling steel. He was Death. Therefore Heero could not die, because Duo simply would not accept his soul. Papadopula would die though. He reholstered his pistol.  
  
"You don't trust me," the man's voice said. "Such a shame. I don't really fancy your boyfriend anyway. He looks like a fagot to me. I'm going to make such deviant behavior illegal on L2. I want to remake this place. Did you figure out yet how? Meet us at the oxygen generators, will you? I'll let you help me improve the gene pool of this colony, not to mention the real estate value. You have twenty minutes. If you're not there, I'll either take my pleasure of your boyfriend, or shot him, or maybe both. Not which first. Oh, and did I mention? The church sent a priest for your little church. Think I should shoot her first, or make her watch? I think her name's Helen. Does that ring a bell for you?"  
  
Duo growled, silently, teeth grinding against each other. Now it was anger that melded with the drug in his system, drawing every last kilogram of energy his body possessed, he took off at a sprint for the same transport lane that he'd gotten Laura a taxi on. He felt almost ghost like, both in his body, and watching himself as he jumped in front of a man on a motorcycle, right into the stream of traffic. Horns honked and the man lost control and laid the bike over on the side, skidding towards where Duo stood in the street. As if he were all powerful, which the drug certainly made him think he was, his piloting skills had him jump at just the right moment and he landed, one foot on the seat, one on the hot engine as it skidded to a stop.  
  
Quickly, he lifted the bike off the man, who was getting his helmet off and turned out to be a woman who threw curses very well. She swipped her helmet at him, as he righted her bike and swung his leg over. "Sorry," he mouthed. The bike hadn't even shut off when it had gone over and he put one foot on the foot peg, revved it, got it going in the right direction, almost lost control of it as he got his other foot off the ground, and he still wasn't sure he was breathing. Distantly he thought his heart rate had to be through the roof. He knew his body, just like the other pilots did, and he was glad the time dead line was twenty minutes. He didn't think his body was going to go full out much longer than that.  
  
L1 Relena's Office of State.  
  
She did not seem even slightly drunk, dressed impeccably, face flawless and unyielding. "My good sir," she addressed the senior Papadopula, the chairman of Rexant, "I am the prime minister of the united earth sphere. I do not need more proof than I have to freeze every account that Rexant has access to. Genocide is a horrendous crime and the evidence that I have is quite credible. By my calculations, freezing Rexant's accounts will create a loose of capital equivalent to twenty-two billion ES credits every 24 Earth hours. I have the necessary legal documents already drawn up on my desk. I will be happy to send you a copy."  
  
The elder Papadopula studied her through the vid phone. Vile creature, he decided. For that kind of money, however, they'd be better off to build a brand new colony. Terse, he snapped, "What do you wish?"  
  
"I wish Rexant to renounce, publicly, all claim and interest to L2. Everyone of your agents must know that Rexant no longer finds L2 viable, and," she paused, eyes narrowing, face hardening, "And that each and every single one of them will be held accountable for what actions that might be considered war crimes. I personally will follow this through."  
  
The old businessman's face was nearly whiter than the lace at Relena's throat. "And if I do as you ask, you will hold Rexant harmless in any prosecutions. I assure you, any agents there have acted completely without my knowledge or approval."  
  
Blue eyes flashed in anger. "As long as there is no major disaster and no more lives are lost. Is that clear, sir?"  
  
"Completely, Madam Prime Minister. I do appreciate you bringing this to my attention in such a timely manner."  
  
"It is no less than my honor and responsibility to assist the well meaning business people of our community."  
  
"Yes, of course," he said, lip twitching. He was going to kill his son, personally.  
  
Inside the Oxygen Generation Station.  
  
Papadopula held the ear piece away from his ear. His father's voice carried very well and was easier to make out a bit farther way when he was screaming. His own plan would work well still, but he didn't bother to tell this to his hysterical and possibly senile father. All he needed to do was make sure that Mr. Maxwell took responsibility for the explosion of the Oxygen Generators. Even if he died doing it, he would be a family hero and his father's favorite forever. His father would be proud of him, perhaps put a big statue of him in the lobby when they rebuilt Rexant's Offices on L2. After all, he couldn't be responsible if he died. The logic was flawless. Then he shot the priest.  
  
Her eyes went wide, her mouth open. Tied to the chair as she was, wrists behind her back, the shattering of her shoulder would very likely have knocked her over. Heero lay at her feet. There was a head wound at the back of his head that had yet to stop bleeding. "Hail Mary, full of grace, hear our prayers, guide our steps," she started the chant that her abbey had taught her, "Hail Mary, full of grace, hear our prayers, guide our steps."  
  
"Oh shut up! Duo Maxwell is going to torture you to death!" Papadopula snarled, without realizing that his own personal guard was withdrawing.  
  
"Hail Mary," she continued, eyes closed, head rocking slowly with her chant.  
  
"I'm going to shot you again! Pay attention to me!"  
  
"Hail Mary, full of grace," Duo said, fury in his voice, only slightly tempered by the memory of Sister Helen, who the priest bleeding before him looked nothing at all like. He'd come in, passing by the retreating Rexant guards. Now he stood, pistol aimed at Papadopula's head. The man looked up at him, eyes twitching and the pistol moved away from where it had been aimed at the priest to where Heero lay slowly regaining his consciousness. Duo fired. "For the Lord art with thee."  
  
The red dot appeared right in the center of the man's forehead, just a little above his eyebrows. Papadopula went over backwards, gun still held tight in his hands. Duo stood there, watching him go, aware that he'd killed again. It was over though. The church had sent a priest. Heero was here, and moving, so he was alive. Heero was strong. Duo took a step down into the control center of the station, his pistol slowly dropping to his side.  
  
Heero had made it all the way to his knees, one hand on the chair that the priest was bound to, head turned to face Duo. The look of.. Duo sought for the word.. horror? On Heero's face shattered something inside Duo and if he'd had the strength he would have lifted the pistol back up, bent his elbow, and protected those he loved. He didn't have the strength though, and metal hit metal as the pistol dropped.  
  
Drug burned out of his system, Duo kept his feet only because he didn't know how to fall down.  
  
Emotion so seldom passed over Heero's face, and Duo knew he didn't like killing, but to have that emotion directed at him. He wished he'd fall, fall into the darkness until he could have the energy to pretend he hadn't seen it. Then Heero was on his feet, one hand raising, his mouth making the word, but no sound came with it, "Duo?"  
  
Blown over by his name on Heero's lips, Duo finally fell, dropping forward, knees buckling, and Heero was there, catching him, going down with him, one arm around his waist, one at the back of his head, cradling him gently.  
  
Heero could not believe how fragile Duo was, how little he weighed as they went down towards the ground. He could not believe the sense of loss and fear he had as he held his friend, felt the rapid beating of his heart as their chests touched. "Duo," he said again, holding his friend close. He didn't know if what Relena had said was true or not, but he knew that he did love Duo. This had to be love, to feel that one's heart would die with the other. "I will get you medical treatment. I wouldn't leave you for as long as you want me to stay. Please don't leave me."  
  
"Death." Duo whimpered, confused by the warmth and tenderness in Heero's embrace. "Hurt you."  
  
"You saved me, Duo. You didn't hurt me. Trust me, do you trust me?"  
  
"Trust you," Duo said, feeling himself lifted in Heero's arms, head against his shoulder. "Yes. Always. Don't steal my parts though."  
  
"Never, I'll take care of your parts. I'll take care of you, always."  
  
Duo lost consciousness as Heero walked out of the station into the fake sunlight of L2, his face sliding forward to rest against Heero's neck, his braid bouncing against Heero's leg as he walked.  
  
Rexant employees, suddenly at the service of the Prime Minister arrived then, with a mobile medical treatment center. Heero refused to be separated from Duo.  
  
On the way to L2's primary hospital, there was an actual doctor working to help Duo, while an emergency medical technician worked to irrigate and tend to the gash at the back of Heero's head. Heero kept an eye on the doctor, who seemed to be getting more and more agitated. Heero kept his opinion to himself though, not able to find fault with the doctor's treatments, yet.  
  
Duo's breathing was rapid and shallow, his pulse nearing 150 by the time they reached the hospital and Heero was seriously considering bodily harm to someone. Other workers came in, transferred Duo, getting him out of the mobile unit and on in towards the major trauma center. Heero caught hold of the doctor, having plenty of strength to lift him off his feet. "Explain."  
  
"The drug." The doctor spat out. "It's making his heart race and his body has no reserves. The antidote will slow his heart, counter the drug's effects, but he's not strong enough. I'm afraid it will put him into cardiac arrest. He's just too weak."  
  
"The drug will wear off." Heero said, searching for answers. "How long till the drug wears off?"  
  
"That's just it," the nearly desperate doctor said, wishing he'd learned more self defense, "The drug pumps the person's metabolism. It wouldn't slow on it's own, not for a day or so. Most users take a downer. He had to know that. Taking it in his state was suicide."  
  
"Duo is not a user." Heero said, letting go of the doctor, unable to get himself to walk into the hospital yet. If he just stood there for another moment. he'd find some answer.  
  
Mika, however, had been picked up by other Rexant aides, her and Jewel as well. And brought to the hospital. Seeing Duo on a table in a waiting room, his uniform sliced open, chest bare, she winced. She'd never seen him without clothes and seeing his ribs was more than she'd wanted. Jewel hadn't stopped crying, not for hours. Mika bounced, it was a habit, just like Duo, but with less effect. A nurse glared at her, suggesting she should take the baby out with her eyes.  
  
When Heero did get himself into Duo's room, he came in with a dark cloud around him. Only to find Duo laying there, covered over by a pink blanket, an odd lump on his chest, a smile on his face. He stood there, just watching, waiting, until Duo's chest rose, gently, deeply. He stepped closer and a woman rose. She laid her finger over her mouth. She hadn't known about the drug or Duo's heart rate, about the near certainty of his death. She had known that if she laid Jewel on his chest, the baby would quite.  
  
Heero lifted the blanket to find a sleeping baby, Duo's braid tip held in a tiny hand. Gently, he took Duo's pulse, to find it a very acceptable 78. "She's his Jewel of Peace," Mika said. "I'm Mika. Are you One?"  
  
Heero blinked, catching a chair and sitting down. "I'm Heero. Duo's jewel of peace? Jewel of life."  
  
There will be an epilogue. Relena is sending a picnic  
  
www.onepinkrose.com 


	7. seven

Duo's Jewel of Peace 7/? (maybe 8) By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimers: I don't own GW. I don't get to make profit from this story until I manage to own the characters.  
  
Pairings: 1+2, 3x4, 5xoc female  
  
Warnings: total fantasy science of the kind that makes me go "I wish!"  
  
Notes: I'm told that Heero has a type A blood type, and that Duo has a type B. I'm going to be bad and declare for the sake of this story, that Duo has type AB. The reason for this will become apparent farther down in the story. I hope this is just a small change and doesn't bother anyone.  
  
Duo's Jewel  
  
Visiting hours had ended. Mika had taken Jewel home. Quatre and Trowa had gone with her, with Trowa nearly carrying the smaller blond. Hospitals were not good places for an empath when his friends were hurting this badly, or even when the hospital was just filling up with people with asphyxiation problems. The air generators had been on a scheduled full shut down and even though Rike had gotten them started again, there'd been spontaneous emissions of fire extinguishing foam as well and in the thinner air, people were sick, poisoned. Heero refused to calculate how the story would have come out if Duo had not shot Papadopuls, if the man had been able to manage the disaster he'd engineered. Instead, he sat next to Duo's bed, lightly feeling the pulse in his friend's wrist, watching a frail chest rise and fall. Visiting hours had passed though. Heero had lied, told the head nurse that he was Duo's mate, and that exempted him from the hospital visiting hour rules.  
  
Duo's pulse had grown fainter over the last hours, his chest rose millimeters less, and Heero knew his friend was dying. All the time he'd spent on Earth, being Relena's security, all the time he'd spent in training, all the time lost, and it was like the girl and the puppy, replaying for him now, this mission failed that he could do nothing about. So close to death, and still Duo had more life in him than Heero thought he'd ever had. He remembered Duo holding that baby, being comforted by her small body on his chest, when Heero'd just been afraid that she'd hurt Duo with her weight, even though she probably didn't weigh more than 4, 4.5 kilos. Failed missions brought Heero easily to the point of wanted to end his own life, and every time he got to those thoughts, there was Duo's thin pulse under his fingers, a fragile lifeline rhythm reminding him that it was Duo who'd picked his battered form from the rocks and told him he just had to live if that hadn't killed him. It was Duo who had picked his battered soul from the wreckage of programming and war, given him the sweet longing for a life of his own.  
  
Trowa would return soon, lay an arm around his shoulders and offer him the comfort that only a best friend can. Heero wanted Duo to be alive then, wanted even an unconscious Duo to hear him tell Trowa that he'd made up his mind, that he understood his heart now, understood that he was in love with Duo.  
  
On Relena's ship -  
  
Relena lowered her head pressed a delicate finger to her forehead, thumb against her cheekbone, and nodded very slightly. On the screen, just inches away, even if she felt like she was shrinking as the doctor gave her his report. So small. It hadn't felt like this when her father had died. That had been an impossible fight against the exploding sun. This was the quite setting of the sun, the slipping away of her own life, not just the radical shift of it.  
  
The doctor had perhaps grown immune, or he just felt important giving a medical report directly to the Prime Minister. "Madame, I don't expect the patient to live another six hours, if that. The first incident of cardiac arrest happened before he was brought in, and the damage is too extensive when taken in tandem with the drug he'd ingested. The malnourished state of his body prior to the drug and the heart attack..."  
  
"Stop," she said, fearing not so much for Duo Maxwell, her rival, her enemy on love's battlefield. "If it's his heart that is so damaged, do a transplant."  
  
"No donor organs are available, Madam, and even if they were, even with a request from your office, there are recipients who have been waiting longer." The doctor said, but Relena noticed the slight hesitation between the words 'available' and 'madam'.  
  
Quickly her mind ran through the political reasons, for things he might be hiding. Her eyes narrowed. "I will take responsibility for his medical bills. And see that your hospital has a sizable donation to celebrate his recovery."  
  
Thin doctor lips twitched, almost smiling. "I will see that he is added to the recipient list, his need is certainly urgent. However, Madame Prime Minister, please understand, he is not a good candidate. His entire circulatory system is damaged; even a donor heart might not save him. He has very little body mass presently and he is short. He has the body of a person in late adolescence. This sometimes happens to people who come to maturity in lower gravity as there is in the less affluent sections of L2, persons who are chronically malnourished."  
  
That wasn't the Duo she remembered. She remembered him smiling and cocky and daring, playing basketball and running with Heero before Duo had gone back to L2. She remembered a Duo who never held back, who had seemed young, and now that she thought about it, he wasn't much taller than Heero, even if Duo were Caucasian, not Asian. Duo was a shooting star. "What about a child's heart? Why would the donor have to be an adult?"  
  
"There are, in this hospital two children on the recipient's list. On Vega, there are four. They are excellent candidates. To risk a young heart on a poor candidate and cost a child their life would be despicable. I'm sure you can understand that?"  
  
Relena's throat closed off, choking tears out her eyes. Duo was just a child, no man in advanced age, just a boy who'd gone away when she'd asked him to, just a boy who'd given her her chance to win Heero. "Then make him a new heart. Clone him one. I will get you the experimental permit. Just do it."  
  
"I haven't got that kind of technology." Duo's doctor said, sounding rather discouraged, realizing that while the prime minister could have represented very good things for his hospital and career, she could also bring him harm. "I know who does though. There is a doctor. Her license has been revoked for cloning experiments. She's rumored to be with the Sweepers. Maybe she'd even be sympathetic to Mr. Maxwell, as they're from the same stock."  
  
"Her name?'  
  
"Ming Sung Sai. She was Chinese, before they ran her off planet."  
  
Relena wrote it down. "Keep Duo Maxwell alive. I will find her."  
  
"I am not God, Madame Prime Minister."  
  
"Then perhaps you should find one to pray to." Relena terminated the call. Duo could not die. Heero would never forgive, never forgive any of them. Relena herself had found a news article with the doctor's photo in it even. This woman, according to the article was brilliant, even if she displayed very little regard for the law. There was a list of her discoveries, achievements, and degrees. Relena hardly believed them. The woman in the photo couldn't have been much older than Relena herself, certainly not more than a couple of years.  
  
On a Preventer's Cruiser Ship -  
  
Wufei blocked, noting the acceptable power that his partner struck with, then threw a punch in return. She dodged, grabbed his arm, spun, attempting a throw, only to find him pour his energy into her throw, and to bring her over as well. They ended up on the sparring mat, him in push up position over her, bodies not touching, eyes locked. She was an Irish girl, maybe, but she had red hair, fiery red and fiery green eyes that challenged him on every decision he made.  
  
"Kitelyn," he said, mangling her Irish bred name with his Chinese accent. "You fight acceptably."  
  
She grinned, a blush coming up over pale cheeks. "Really?" Then she sucker punched him in the gut, which doubled him over and put her on top of him, her knees to his chest, her elbow against his throat, where it would have crushed his breath from him if they'd been really fighting. "I thought I cheated."  
  
He smoldered under, but let his wrists fall back to the mats in submission. "The red dragon does not cheat when it stalks it's prey."  
  
"The black dragon knows few rivals, but does well to accept true companionship," she parried verbally, and he laughed, bucking his body to tell her to get off of him.  
  
"This black dragon," he said, laying a hand on his chest, "is wiser than he was." Across the room, he saw his comset blinking though, and pointed to it in explanation as he took his sweaty black dragon form over to it.  
  
Maxwell. This was the first time he'd heard about Maxwell's current problem, which seemed to quite out do the previous. The death of Death's Dragon would make the stars themselves weep in the dark velvet of space. "We have a mission. We'll take the Viper."  
  
"Oh, we will? You got permission to take that death trap?"  
  
He nodded curtly, completely back to business as he headed for the showers. "Mission is direct from the prime minister. We are to use all necessary force; timetable of the mission is two hours. We must acquire a renegade scientist, a doctor who experiments in cloning."  
  
Caitlin peeled her own sweat damp shirt off as she followed her partner into the shower room. "Two hours? Where are we going to find said doc in two hours?"  
  
"Trowa tracked her to a mining ship. The ships captain knew Trowa and suggested we try on the new moon Helios. Her proximity gives us good hope of reaching her in the timetable, with the Viper," Wufei explained. Then they showered fast and hard, red and black dragons. Within twenty minutes they were in the launch bay.  
  
The Viper turned out to be a small two person craft, dagger shaped where it hung in the dock, the large launch engines clinging around both cylindrical fighters like the hilt of a dagger. Cait had taken to secretly calling them Vice and Viper. At first she'd thought of them almost as coffins, but it was because of her ability to pilot this craft, a skill that had more to do with how fast her nerves fired than any training she'd had, that was the trait that let her spend more time with the Black dragon, and she could lay down in a coffin to be near him, especially if they both got to get back out too.  
  
In Ming's Lab -  
  
Ming Sung Sai knew they were coming. If the Viper's propulsion system had not held her attention so intensely, she very likely would have arranged a collision with space debris for them. There was an unusually large amount of it near this new moon. She herself was not terribly good at mechanics nor computer programming, but it fascinated her just the same. She wanted to examine their craft much more than she found the idea of conversation with police officers only slightly better than trying to do a DNA insertion with an eyedropper.  
  
Some things just had not changed all that much her lifetime. At 103 years old, she'd had plenty of opportunity to discuss morality with police officers of various organizations. When she hailed them, she asked for their identification, and like good little boys they replied with badge numbers. This gave her their id's, everything from academic career to some very interesting photos. The girl was quite interesting. Yes, the girl was very interesting. Ming lacked few of the pleasures of life. Until she saw the photo of the girl, standing next to her partner, sunlight behind them, a Chinese and a European together, until then she had not realized how lonely she was.  
  
She rose from her desk, the bells on the end of her four hair pins tinkling softly. She did not look like the preeminent, if exiled, bioengineer in the Earth Sphere and just beyond. She looked like a Chinese princess, five foot four, with long jet black hair, bright blue eyes with twenty-twenty vision, and not a wrinkle anywhere on her 125 pound body. She decided she would welcome these police officers, offer them what it was they wished, within reason, and she would find for herself a lover, a red headed lover, perhaps.  
  
In Duo's Room..  
  
She touched Heero's shoulder softly. "Mr. Yuy?"  
  
He woke with a start, surveyed the room quickly. Outside the window, the sun was rising. Inside the room, Duo's chest was still rising, falling. Heero realized he'd fallen asleep with his forehead touching Duo's fingers. "Yes? How may I help you?"  
  
"I am Leiloni Captril. I'm a hospice nurse. Mr. Maxwell's doctor referred you to me, and I thought I would come and introduce myself. I want to help in anyway I can."  
  
Heero considered her words. Hospice. It was an organization that assisted the dying, comforted them, and helped those that love them grief. "I have no need of your services, but I thank you for your time."  
  
"Mr. Yuy, here is my card, in case you change your mind, or would like to at least discuss Mr. Maxwell's diagnosis. One of the jobs of hospice is to help the family members understand the condition that is causing their loved one to die." She held out the card and Heero found it ironic to think that she could be on such friendly terms with death and dying.  
  
He'd hated both when he fought. Duo had been the one on friendly terms with death. Shinigami. Would the Japanese god of death come to claim Duo? Walk away with him, one arm over his shoulder, as Duo laughed maniacally. Heero pretended he didn't have heartburn and asked, "What do you know of his condition?"  
  
She reached for the other chair and sat down, pulling a small, inexpensive palm computer from her jacket pocket. "This is a still image from one of the scans that was taken yesterday." She held it out to him, expecting confusion, an angry outburst perhaps, which she expected to be able to diffuse.  
  
Heero studied the scan, shifted in his chair, touched the screen to move to another still of Duo's scan. "He had a heart attack. No one told me. He needs a heart transplant. The damage is too much for someone of his age."  
  
She blinked, reached for her little computer only to have him move away, as he flipped through the stills, assessing the damage to other parts of Duo's body. "Mr. Yuy, Mr. Maxwell has been put on a recipient's list. All that can be done for him is, but his condition is very critical. I don't think we'll find a donor."  
  
"A donor," Heero whispered, getting an idea. 


	8. eight

Duo's Jewel 8/8 By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimers: I don't own GW. I don't get to make profit from this story until I manage to own the characters.  
  
Pairings: 1+2, 3x4, 5xoc female  
  
Warnings: total fantasy science of the kind that makes me go "I wish!"  
  
Notes: I'm told that Heero has a type A blood type, and that Duo has a type B. I'm going to be bad and declare for the sake of this story, that Duo has type AB. The reason for this will become apparent farther down in the story. I hope this is just a small change and doesn't bother anyone.  
  
Duo's Jewel  
  
It was very simple. Duo needed a heart. Heero had one. If Duo died, he didn't think he'd need his anymore. So it was a very simple. Some missions could not fail. The annoying woman from Hospice had left, and Heero wasn't sure just when. He laid Duo's hand down, noticed the bruising around the IV line and promised Duo that he'd complete this mission as well as he could.  
  
Mission mindset settled around him. He needed to write two letters. He needed a gun. Mission mindset was harder now than it used to be and he couldn't get to Duo's lips, so he leaned over and kissed his cheek, taking unfair advantage of his friend. "I told the nurse I was your life partner, Duo," he whispered, "I don't know if you feel like that about me, but I do about you. I love you. I love you enough to give you my heart, in every way. Live Duo, you have to live."  
  
Duo moved slightly, head held in place y the tubes in his mouth, his nose, and for a moment Heero was afraid that those eyes might open and make this harder by far. He couldn't help it, his fingers caressed over brown hair softly. He didn't know how he'd make love to Duo, if he'd had the chance, but he wanted this touch, wanted to feel that hair for just this moment. He left one of his tears on Duo's ear, slipping around to pool at the back where restrained hands couldn't reach it. It was soon joined by tears from Duo's eyes, even if they didn't open.  
  
Heero walked, back straight, eyes cold. Now it was just a mission, no more emotion.  
  
In a hotel close to the hospital.  
  
Quatre sat up straight in bed, panting like he would never catch his breath again. "Trowa! Trowa!"  
  
The taller man eased up onto one elbow, reaching out to pull his lover closer, comforting him gently. Trowa had expected Duo to die. This saddened him. What shamed him was that he was much more concerned about his lover's reaction to the impending death of their friend than he was worried about the death. Duo was his friend. Heero was his friend, but Quatre was his soul. "I'm here, come, lay back down."  
  
"No! Heero! Oh, Trowa! Heero's going to kill himself!"  
  
Trowa didn't find that surprising. Heero had come on a mission, and sometimes the favorite pilot of the Earth's Sphere wasn't all that different from when Trowa'd first meet him. "I'll go to him, Quatre. He'll be at the hospital. If Duo had died already, they would have called us."  
  
At the hospital ~  
  
In the hospital garden, barren as it presently was, Heero gave himself fifteen minutes to write a letter to Duo. For the first time that he could remember, poetic images and words flowed through him as if he were in a daze, but all that made it to the paper was, "I love you." There was just too much emotion and weight and Heero was tired of it.  
  
The second letter stated his will that his body should be donated, that while the heart could only be used for Duo Maxwell, the other organs could be harvested and used wherever suitable.  
  
In Duo's room ~  
  
Duo's heart stopped. The monitor screamed. Medical personnel reacted. His doctor ran from his office, the Prime Minister's barely veiled threats like demons around him. There was no way he was going to pronounce Duo Maxwell. The crash cart was waiting for him and he broke rules. "Scrubs! Now. Get me an OR cart!"  
  
Seconds counted. Procedure didn't count for nearly as much if the Prime Minister was willing to break the law to save someone. The head nurse looked at the senior doctor, assessed, and suspected. "You can't open him here," she said, already slipping into her own sterile scrubs. They might buy the boy a few more hours by doing this, but they'd weaken him, making it harder for a transplant to succeed. It would cost them a heart and a patient, and the doctor's license.  
  
"I will not let him die." The doctor snarled. "I'd open him on the street and massage his heart forever. He can't die."  
  
The head nurse didn't understand why. Duo didn't seem overly important to her, not with another several hundred injured people and more that couldn't even get into the hospital right now. He was just a money less do gooder, a murderer on top of it. Her skilled hands were moving though, pulling the nasogastric tube out, then the ventilator, as they'd be doing him manually. Other personnel had the patient stripped and the bed up and the doctor reached in and took hold of Duo's damaged heart.  
  
Duo himself was standing on the other side of the room, dressed neatly in black and white, hair full and shiny, an amused smirk on his face. Sister Helen stood next to him, a cross in her hands, a soft prayer on her lip, and Duo felt like he'd come home finally. Watching some crazy doctor pry his chest open was just amusing in this state. When he closed his eyes he could feel Quatre crying, and he send thoughts of comfort and peace to the blond. Such a good man, was Quatre.  
  
Sister Helen finished her prayer and wrapped her arms around Duo, hugging him tightly, but when she spoke, he couldn't hear her. She looked so beautiful, just as he'd first seen her. Her smile was joyous and she ran fingers that felt solid though his hair, and he read her lips, "My son, you were the son of my heart, Duo Maxwell, but you can't come home just yet. I'm so very proud of you. God loves you, Duo, but you must find Heero. He is your family now as well, and your daughter. I love you, my son."  
  
Even spirits cry, as tears start in the soul long before they touch the cheeks. "Sister! Don't leave me. It's too hard here, too sad!"  
  
"Find Heero," she said, soundlessly.  
  
Duo had his mission mode too. Turning his back on the disappearing Sister Helen and his own body which was open and way too red, he ran out of the room, trying to think where Heero might be. It wasn't so hard, to find him really. Duo found his heart drew him, like a golden line between them, he followed, running with a strength he hadn't had in months. Up the stairs, down the hall, into something labeled the 'blood and organ bank', Duo ran, passing easily through doors and people. It was the best stealth he'd ever pulled off and he was really pleased with himself. He didn't like finding Heero in a place of that name though, and liked even less what he heard Trowa saying, "Yuy, consider carefully. They will not allow this. They will not let you give your heart to Duo."  
  
Duo stopped, back against a wall of tan colored coolers. He didn't know he could be a ghost and still have his heart beating a mile a minute and taking up his mouth.  
  
Heero's voice was that deadly serious mission first asshole voice that Duo rather hated. "They will have no choice. They can not allow Duo to die if they have a donor for him."  
  
"Heero," Trowa said, and Duo heard the step that the taller man took. "Your life is important as well. Duo would not want this."  
  
"How do you know?" And this voice of Heero's wrung Duo's soul. So much pain, so much agony, Duo almost wished for the mission asshole voice. "How do you know? He loved being alive, Trowa. He was so much life and I should have been here sooner. I should have come with him! I should have protected him! I should have told him I loved him when he could hear me!"  
  
Duo stepped away from the coolers and around the corner, and there was his Heero, pistol pressed to the back of his head, just behind his ear. Duo tilted his head and smiled. Heero. Heero was so beautiful, so brave, so damn stubborn. There wasn't anything in heaven that counted half as much as those blue eyes and the chance to see them smiling. Heero closed his eyes. Duo lunged. Heero squeezed the trigger. Spirits are faster than bullets though and Heero's arm shot up, grazing that stubborn head, tracing a line of red, but the bullet imbedded itself in the metal of the bank's ceiling. Heero dropped to his knees and Duo's spirit kissed him.  
  
For just a moment, Heero thought he could feel Duo's lips on his, that sweet coffee chocolate taste that he'd always imagined Duo would taste like. Braid against his thigh where he knelt, he just knew he felt the weight of Duo's braid on his thigh and when he opened his eyes, he saw them, those dancing violet eyes, smiling and healthy. "I love you,' Heero heard the whispered words, "I will always love you."  
  
"Duo!" Heero screamed, but Trowa had gotten close enough to take the gun now, and had already disassembled it. "Duo! Don't leave me! Duo! Please! Duo!"  
  
Then Duo felt the pull, felt it jerk so hard that it hurt. If this was dying it wasn't supposed to bloody hurt so much! He wrapped his arms around his chest, feeling pain like his chest was ripped open, his heart cut out, even in his spirit form. "OH fuck me!" He snarled and then he was gone.  
  
Heero just sat there, feeling that Duo had gone, trying to etch the look of those ghostly violet eyes in his mind forever. That was the last thing he'd ever thing about.  
  
Duo's doctor stepped around the bank of coolers just the way Duo had. His scrubs were gone, but he was still dotted with Duo's blood, a grim and furious look on his face. "You! Selfish prick! Get up off my floor. I need your heart, the DNA of it. Your prime minister friend has gotten this hospital into dangerous illegal experiments. You don't mind, do you? Contributing DNA?"  
  
"Why?" Trowa asked, suspicious, more so because of the scent of blood. It brought back battle scenes for him, brought him back to being Noname. "Heero's heart is not available."  
  
"I don't take hearts from living 'donors'. I have gotten Maxwell's heart beating again. He's on full life support. We have maybe 36 hours, and we're going to build him a new heart, and fast. So if your friend wants his DNA in the heart, he'd better get up off the floor and swear that he'll have no more weapons in my hospital."  
  
Heero looked up, finding breathing almost painful. "Duo's alive? I'll help, tell me what to do?"  
  
Thirty-six hours was not enough time. Ming explained via video phone, transferred data that was decades ahead of medical science that Duo's doctor had even thought of as theoretical. He created stem cells, from donor cells taken from a baby that he was told Heero had sired. He didn't really believe it, but he didn't have time for the usual checks and research that he'd normally have done. In twenty four hours, he had created something that he would have bet his life, even with the information that Ming had given him, he would have sworn he'd have needed two years to create. And yet there it was, beautiful, perfect, the healthiest infant heart he'd ever seen, build of the DNA of Heero Yuy and the stem cells of one little baby girl named Jewel.  
  
Heero had built equipment that Ming had sent specifications for, technology that would save untold lives beyond Maxwell. Within the field generated by some of this equipment, Duo's new heart beat, and aged. The plan was to let it age, just until about a 10 year old equivalent, another three hours. The doctor slept. Heero slept, one hand on the plastic tent that encased Duo in a sterile environment.  
  
Relena had arrived and she had been allowed to see what her political pirating had accomplished. So there she stood, in front of what was genetically, and emotionally, Heero's beating heart. It was a heart that would beat in Duo Maxwell's chest. Seeing there, she didn't mind so much. It was the heart of a child and made her see them both in a new light, covered them both with a kind of innocence that she couldn't associate with herself just then. What she didn't see was the Chinese woman watching the room from a vid screen, but who was now watching her, intently.  
  
Relena's mobile phone rang and she answered, listening and watching the little heart beat. "Yes, yes, of course, we will want to set up an aide package. I will be back to the office soon, Manon. Can't you just put everything on hold until I get there? I need to be here with my friends."  
  
Ming watched this woman walk out. She didn't know who she was, but the red head no longer interested her. Ming decided she needed to go to L2. It was a lovely, lawless colony anyway. And who ever that lady was, she suddenly got named Lady Charity in Ming's mind.  
  
A few hours later ~  
  
Trowa and Wufei were both there when the doctors came to get Duo and Heero had the distinct feeling that he was being baby sat. Heero thought the installation of Duo's new heart took longer than the creation did. During the 18 hours of surgery, Heero ended up holding Duo's Jewel rather more than he would have liked. The child grew on him though, which he supposed was only fitting, as he was legally her guardian. He'd been required to register her birth and he'd named her Jewel Yuy-Maxwell. He hoped Duo approved.  
  
At one point in the surgery, Duo was literally heartless, and that left his spirit free to wander the halls. He found Heero sleeping once, with Jewel on his chest, holding her just as he liked to himself, and he smiled. He didn't think he was going to die, even though he didn't really understand what they'd done to save him.  
  
It was two weeks, three days and four hours, thirty six minutes when he finally woke, back in his own body. Heero was there, as he had been in many dreams, but this time Heero leaned forward and kissed his forehead. Duo took a deep breath, felt his chest expand, contract, didn't feel any pain. "Heero?"  
  
"Welcome back, Duo." Heero smiled just a tiny bit.  
  
"I go some where?" Duo asked, his voice hoarse. "I had the damnest dream, that you were going to shot yourself in the head. Tell me that's not true?"  
  
"I'm here. We're alive. Are you in pain?" Heero reached for Duo's hand, a hand he'd grown comfortable to holding. It was odd now that Duo was awake, how those fingers didn't seem to fold so perfectly into his hand now, instead, those fingers moved against his, seeking to hold his hand in return.  
  
"No pain. Feel really good. You been waiting long for me to wake up?"  
  
Heero closed his eyes for a moment. This was Duo, flippant, casual. How to explain. "I've been waiting a life time for myself to wake up. You about three weeks. Trowa and Quatre are here, Wufei and his partner as well. The children at the church are all safe. You have a new heart."  
  
"A new heart? Heero, you wouldn't give your life for mine, would you? I don't want your heart!"  
  
Heero looked pained, his dropping down to his feet, fingers trying to pull away, but Duo held onto him, not with the strength in his hand, because he didn't have any, but just that Heero couldn't pull way, as long as Duo tried to hold him. "I'm sorry, Duo."  
  
"Heero!"  
  
"You do have my heart, Duo." Heero laid his palm on Duo's chest, and felt it beating there, against the rapidly healed chest. "This heart within you was created from my DNA and from your little girl's cells. You have a brand new heart, Duo, but it's still my heart."  
  
Duo closed his eyes and took a slow breath, slowly moving his hand to cover Heero's. The last thing he remembered was. shooting the man who he thought had hurt Heero. "Then will you accept my heart in return? I'm in love with you, Heero, like sexually attracted and uh, you're my best friend, so like I know, you're with Relena and all, but yeah, um," Duo squeezed Heero's fingers with all his strength and sought for more words in the silence. He as delusional, totally delusional, to think that Heero had been crying for him, whispering that he loved him. Yeah! Right. The silence drew out a bit. Heero was with Relena and that was best. "I'm sorry, Heero. Just forget I said anything, okay? Please?"  
  
That was when warmth lingered over his lips. When he opened his eyes, he found blue eyes staring into his, then thin lips pressed to his. It was a virgin kiss, just lips to lips and stillness. Duo blinked, tilted his head just a little and slipped his tongue out to touch Heero's lips. Heero jolted, eyes going wider, but then he leaned a little forward, his tongue shyly moving out to meet Duo's. One heart. One kiss, and Heero was not with Relena. 


End file.
